‘Don’t be silly,’ said Lady Hardcastle when I voiced my concern. ‘You look wonderful. And Christmas trees are much taller.’

  ‘You’re such a comfort, my lady,’ I said. ‘So as long as I refrain from standing on chairs and stay away from stepladders, I shall be fine?’

  ‘I think that’s good advice for any lady, but yes – don’t look too tall or small children will begin searching you for presents.’

  I was prevented from replying by the ringing of the doorbell. Bert, the Farley-Strouds’ chauffeur, had arrived to pick us up.

  We were admitted to The Grange without fuss or ceremony. Lady Farley-Stroud greeted us warmly and led us through to the library, where we found Sir Hector in his favourite place: beside the drinks cabinet.

  ‘Good evening, m’dears. What’ll you have?’ he said. ‘Blasted relations are all still up in their rooms, but that shouldn’t stop the rest of us from enjoying a livener.’

  ‘What’s in the big bowl?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘Wassail punch, m’dear. Made from Old Joe Whatsit’s best cider. And some baked apples, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Oh, and a lemon. Even with Joe’s strongest scrumpy it seemed a bit on the tame side, so there might be a glug or two of Calvados in there.’ He winked. ‘Picked it up in Normandy a few summers ago.’

  ‘Sounds delicious,’ she said. ‘And the jug?’

  ‘Mulled wine,’ he said, proudly. ‘Much the same, really, but without the apples and with claret instead of cider. It seemed to suffer the same timidity, so I pepped this one up with cognac.’

  ‘I’ve always been fond of mulled wine,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a glass of that, please.’

  ‘Certainly, certainly,’ he said, and set about pouring the warm, spicy wine from the cut-crystal jug. ‘Trick is to empty the jug before it gets cold.’ He winked again and turned to me. ‘And what about you, m’dear – can I tempt you?’

  ‘I’ll try the punch, please, Sir Hector,’ I said. ‘When in Rome . . .’

  ‘Quite so, quite so,’ he said. ‘Excellent choice. Strong tradition of cider-making out here in the West.’ He ladled a healthy serving into a crystal punch cup.

  ‘Your very good health,’ he said, raising his own glass.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ said Lady Hardcastle and I together.

  We were helping ourselves to mince pies when there was a commotion at the door.

  ‘. . . but Mama said I could have it,’ said a small girl’s voice.

  ‘And Great-Aunt Gertrude said you were a dung beetle,’ said another. ‘So I should have it.’

  ‘I said nothing of the sort, young Patience,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud, the great-aunt in question. ‘What are you two fighting over?’

  ‘It’s a Collider-Spoke,’ said the younger girl earnestly as she held up a small, bright red tube. ‘And it’s mine. Mama said so.’

  ‘Did your mother say that Constance can play with it?’ said Lady Farley-Stroud to the older girl.

  ‘Well . . .’ she began, stalling for time while she came up with a convincing story. ‘She did . . . but . . . Constance is a dung beetle.’

  ‘Oh, do stop that,’ said a weary voice from the door. ‘We’ve allowed you to come down with the grown-ups as a special Christmas treat, but if you’re going to be beastly you can just about jolly well go back up to bed.’

  ‘Sorry, Mama,’ the girls chimed together. They made a great show of going demurely to a corner of the library, where they quietly resumed hostilities.

  ‘Come and meet our neighbours, Henrietta, m’dear,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud to the owner of the weary voice.

  A small, pretty woman in her mid-twenties trailed behind the lady of the house and made her way across the room. Her face looked as weary as her voice sounded, but she was elegantly dressed in a cream-coloured gown and she carried herself with confidence.

  ‘Emily,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud, ‘allow me to introduce my . . . niece-in-law? That doesn’t sound right. This is Henrietta, my sister’s younger son’s wife. Henrietta, this is Emily, Lady Hardcastle, my dear friend and our local sleuth.’

  The two women shook hands.

  ‘How exciting,’ said the younger woman. ‘We’ve heard so much about you. Please call me Hattie – everyone does.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Hattie,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘And this is Florence Armstrong,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud.

  Hattie shook my hand with equal vigour. ‘The doughty lady’s maid and bodyguard,’ she said. ‘We’ve read so much about you as well. It seems strange to think that Aunt Gertrude knows someone so famous. Our family only appears in the announcements in the newspapers. “Beaufort. On the third of October, 1909, to Henrietta (née Bentley) and Cornelius, a daughter Prudence.” That sort of thing. But you two always make a splash with your sleuthing and fisticuffs. Gosh.’

  I stifled a laugh but Lady Hardcastle didn’t bother. She chuckled merrily. ‘I’m not sure it’s quite the notoriety our own mothers would have wished for us, but it does mean we’re invited to dinner more often these days.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ said Hattie.

  ‘Dear Cornelius can’t be with us this evening, I’m afraid,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud. ‘He’s been detained in London on important business. He works in banking, you know.’

  Lady Hardcastle frowned inquisitively.

  ‘My husband,’ Hattie clarified. ‘Father of the two squabbling hellions over yonder and, apparently, someone without whom the bank simply cannot function.’ She sighed.

  ‘He’ll come down when he can, m’dear,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud. ‘He wouldn’t let his family down at Christmas.’

  Hattie had the resigned look of someone who had been ‘let down’ altogether too many times before to believe this hearty reassurance, but she dutifully nodded her agreement nonetheless.

  Hattie and her brood were merely the advance guard. Over the next quarter of an hour, the rest of the houseguests arrived – along with the Reverend and Mrs Bland, and Dr Fitzsimmons, from the village.

  I tried to keep track of the family members, but without a notebook and pencil I never really stood a chance. Lady Farley-Stroud’s sister, Hilda, made an impression, certainly. She seemed to be younger by a few years, but theirs was a strong family resemblance both in appearance and manner. I remembered being pleasantly surprised by some of the more outrageous tales from Lady Farley-Stroud’s youth, and it seemed that Hilda was no less prone to ribaldry. They shared a taste in men, too. Her husband, Baden Beaufort, was clearly cast from the same mould as Sir Hector – affable, cheerful and compliant. He was also partial to a drink. Or two.

  Sir Hector’s sister, by contrast, struck me as being a good deal less fun to be around. Mrs Joyce Adaway had been widowed in 1898. Like the late Queen Victoria, she had dressed in mourning and had steadfastly refused to wear any colour other than black ever since. She was a few years older than Sir Hector, with old-fashioned attitudes to match. She had been on the verge of shaking my hand until Lady Farley-Stroud had said that I was Lady Hardcastle’s lady’s maid. Where others might have shaken my hand anyway and privately wondered what the world was coming to, she snatched back her hand and turned away. She didn’t even trouble to invent a distraction, she simply turned and left.

  This amused Sir Hector no end. ‘Take no notice, m’dear,’ he said. ‘Always been a snob, our Joycie. Hope y’don’t mind too much, but you were the first person to be added to the guest list when she accepted the invitation to come down. We knew you’d get up her nose.’ He laughed again. ‘Scored a bullseye there, what? Can’t wait to see her face when you sit down with us at lunch tomorrow.’

  He seemed so gleeful at casting me as the cat to be set among her pigeons that I found it hard to take offence.

  Mrs Adaway’s eldest daughter, Alberta, and her husband, Sir Edward Chambers, made little immediate impression. I gathered from conversation that he was a KC, and he seemed charming enough, but in most respects he was like every other barrister I’ve ever met and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pick him out from a crowd in future. Their children, Letitia and Humphrey, had also been allowed to join the grown-ups, but made a beeline for their cousins as soon as they were able, so I didn’t get a chance to find out what they were like. The four children formed a suspiciously conspiratorial huddle in the corner of the library, and I was glad I wasn’t going to be around long enough to suffer the results of their machinations.

  We were given reasons why assorted other brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces were unable to join the rest of the family in Gloucestershire, but I confess I can no longer recall any of the details. There were one or two ‘other family engagements’, at least one more ‘urgently required at work’ and, my definite favourite: ‘To tell the truth, m’dear, I can’t stand the man – gives me the absolute pip – so we never invite him.’

  The final guest to blow exuberantly into the library, cigar in hand, was Julius Goodheart. He was introduced as a ‘terribly good pal’ of Sir Edward, and I could tell at once that he was going to be the one to enliven proceedings. He was moderately tall, with the build of a sportsman and the confident air of someone who has never met anyone who didn’t immediately like him. Even in the company of complete strangers – most of whom had known each other all their lives – his easy bonhomie made him the centre of whichever group he happened to be in.

  It was shaping up to be a rather fun evening.

  * * *

  It turned out to be a most convivial occasion. The piano had been moved into the library from its usual home in the ballroom, which gave Lady Hardcastle an opportunity to show off. She provided an elegant accompaniment to a handful of Christmas carols which we sang together. Several of the company remembered the choral parts, which made the whole thing less of a hearty sing-song and more of a beautifully harmonic celebration of the season.

  We eventually exhausted the Christmas repertoire, though. By and by, we were stood down in favour of Sir Hector’s sister, Mrs Adaway, whose rich contralto voice brought an unexpectedly tender touch to one or two sentimental songs. Perhaps she had a heart after all.

  With the room thus blanketed in a mood of wistful melancholy, it fell to Sir Edward and his pal Julius Goodheart to revive the party spirit and set us back on the road to seasonal merrymaking. This they achieved by means of a medley of music-hall songs. After a brief confab with Lady Hardcastle, which made them look just as suspiciously conspiratorial as the children had earlier, they launched into a routine to rival many of the acts we’d seen at the professional theatre.

  By the time they were done, the room was once more buoyant and jolly, and I swear I even saw Mrs Adaway clapping along at one point. With our spirits restored, the two men, who had taken on the role of ringleaders in the festivities, announced that it was time for games.

  Hot Boiled Beans involved the hiding of a small object while one person was out of the room, and then encouraging them to find it by telling them they were ‘getting warmer’. This was followed, at Hattie Beaufort’s insistence, by a few rounds of The Minister’s Cat, a feline whose traits and characteristics were presented in alphabetical order. She had chosen it because it was ‘one that the children can play with us’. When their turn came and they pronounced that the Minister’s Cat was a flappy cat, a gargling cat, a Hungarian cat and an itchy cat, we knew it had been a good choice.

  Time wore on, and the vicar and his wife had to excuse themselves so that he could prepare for Midnight Mass. This was taken as an opportunity to send the children off so that their nannies could get them ready for the trip to church. The self-appointed Masters of Mirth were keen that this interruption should not signal an end to the fun, though, and asked if anyone had any games we could play before we all set off for the service.

  Earlier that year, Lady Hardcastle and I had spent a week at Codrington Hall in Rutland in the company of Lord Riddlethorpe and his family, notably his eccentrically badly behaved Uncle Algy. The old boy knew (or had invented) a number of bawdy parlour games, and Lady Hardcastle suggested two: St Uguzo’s Holy Cheese, and Jean-Pierre’s Magical Vineyard.

  Having explained the simple rules of both games, she let the group choose. By unanimous vote, it was decided that St Uguzo’s Holy Cheese was the only game worth playing and we passed the rest of the evening playing that hilariously smutty game. Lady Farley-Stroud and her sister were every bit as racy as predicted with a few glasses of punch inside them, while Sir Hector seemed to be taking most of his enjoyment from observing his own sister’s mounting outrage.

  By a quarter past eleven we were exhausted by the unceasing laughter, and it came as a relief when Sir Hector announced that it was time for coats and hats and the twenty-minute walk down the hill to the village church.

  We left them to stagger back up the hill after the service, and instead made the much shorter journey back to the house. There would be ample opportunity to rejoin the festivities tomorrow, but for now the call of a cozy bed in familiar surroundings was too strong for me to ignore, and I knew Lady Hardcastle felt the same. We wished them all a merry Christmas for the umpteenth time and set off across the green.

  TWO

  As always, no matter that we’d had a late night, I was up at robin’s chirp (I was reasonably certain it was a robin), with the range lit and the kettle on long before Lady Hardcastle stirred. She had given Edna and Miss Jones their champagne and presents before they left on Christmas Eve, to their great surprise and evident delight. She had reassured them once more that they could take both Christmas Day and Boxing Day off – with full pay – to spend with their families.

  I knew that by the time we sat down to Christmas dinner at The Grange we’d be eating enough to make a blue whale complain of feeling stuffed. Lady Hardcastle had told me one evening over dinner that the blue whale eats over three and a half tons of krill every day, and I could well imagine being fed close to that quantity of beef and roast potatoes before we even got to the mountain of vegetables. There’d be Christmas pudding as well. And mince pies.

  With that in mind, I decided that a light breakfast was in order. Dear Miss Jones had bought some duck eggs, so I soft-boiled four of them and prepared a few rounds of toast which I cut into fingers, the easier to dunk them into the soft yolks. The addition of a coffee pot, cups, saucers, plates, cutlery and a salt cellar made the tray somewhat heavy and awkward. I had to set it down on the table on the landing in order that I could knock on the bedroom door.

  ‘Merry Christmas, tiny servant,’ said Lady Hardcastle as I heaved the bounteously burdened tray onto the bed.

  ‘And a very merry Christmas to you, too,’ I said. ‘I bring dippy egg.’

  ‘Dippy duck eggs from the looks of them. Join me.’

  ‘I thought it best that we stick to the minimum necessary to sustain life and revive the spirits,’ I said as I sat on the edge of the bed. ‘We’ll need all the room we can spare for the feast.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ she said. ‘Christmas lunch always promises to burst the bellies of even the most gluttonous among us.’

  ‘Is St Nicholas the patron saint of taxidermists?’ I asked.

  ‘Children, mostly,’ she said. ‘And brewers. And merchants. Fishermen, too, I believe. There are loads more on his docket – he’s quite a busy chap . . . Oh, and prostitutes.’

  ‘He sounds like the ideal saint to have with you on a night on the town.’

  ‘If you can get St Lorenzo to come with you – he takes care of cooks – and St Genesius for the actors and dancers, you’d be very well-looked-after.’

  ‘I’ll put them on the guest list,’ I said.

  ‘Talking of being looked after,’ she said as she finished another spoonful of egg, ‘I have something for you.’

  She leaned over and took two ribbon-bound boxes from her nightstand.

  ‘Are we exchanging gifts now?’ I asked.

  ‘I know we usually wait until after lunch, but we’ll be at Gertie’s.’

  I took the first box and gave it an investigatory shake. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll get yours in a moment.’

  I pulled the bow and the ribbon fell away, allowing me to lift the lid. Inside was a miniature replica of the motor car I had so very nearly raced in at Lord Riddlethorpe’s home in the summer.

  ‘Fishy told me he had commissioned a model of his motor car to commemorate his first win, and I asked if he could get them to make one for you as well,’ she said.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘Thank you so very much. Can we put it on the mantel in the drawing room? It will be nice to have a memento of our adventures. And a reminder that I still haven’t driven a racing car.’

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ she said. ‘Open the other one. Go on. I had that made specially, too.’

  The second box was somewhat flatter than the first, but no less heavy. Its silk ribbon came away just as easily. Inside, I found a knife.

  ‘It’s another scale replica,’ she said.

  And it was. My father, whose real name was Joe Armstrong, had made his living as a circus knife-thrower called The Great Coltello. His knives had been ‘retired’ when he died – it was the tradition among his circus troupe that an act’s props and costumes would be respectfully put away when the performer passed on – and I had sometimes said that I would have loved to have had one of his throwing knives. In truth, his skill was such that he could throw any knife, but for the climax of his act he would stand my mother in front of a target and throw a matched set of decorated knives at her. The blades were elongated diamond shapes, and the handles were painted purple with a pattern of stars picked out in yellow. They would trace the outline of her body on the board, landing a fraction of an inch from her skin though he never once cut her. There, in the Christmas box, was a smaller version of one of those knives. The blade was of polished steel rather than the dull metal of the originals, and the purple handle was enamelled and set with tiny gemstones where the real thing had been painted, but it was definitely my father’s knife. I confess I shed at least one tear.